258 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



The following extracts from a letter I wrote to the county 

 paper will give an idea of this strange incident : 



"BABEL IN THE MIDNIGHT SKY 



"SlR, Any one abroad on Friday night last, in Yarmouth or 

 Norwich, must certainly have noticed, and probably have been 

 interested in, the strange babel of bird cries that came and 

 went as the bewildered birds wheeled to and fro abovehead. 

 The reason of this delightful hubbub was simple enough, and 

 whereas in times gone by the old folks, sagely wagging their 

 heads, whispered of troubled spirits, the boys and girls of to-day 

 know sufficient about birds and their ways to tell you they were 

 birds on their midnight journeyings, calling to each other so 

 as to keep in touch with their fellows in the dark. The noisiest 

 proceedings, however, took place when most young folks should 

 be a-bed, or they even might have wondered. 



" I was in Norwich up till ten o'clock, and from nine to 

 ten I was much interested, as well as delighted, listening 

 with a friend in his ' backyard ' in St. Giles', and pitting my 

 knowledge of bird cries against his . . ., and straining our 

 eyes to their utmost in endeavouring to pierce the darkness, 

 hoping to see some of the nearer-approaching flocks re- 

 flected against the light that glared upwards into the night. 



" Of course, we knew that these early migrants had been 

 ' held up/ fascinated perhaps, bewildered more likely, by the 

 glare of the lights, and held spell-bound, to be released in 

 the morning when light returned. Most of these were un- 

 doubtedly young birds, as the earliest travellers mostly are, 

 the younger broods of waders going southward before their 

 elders, instinctively knowing their never-before-travelled 

 road. I knew most were youngsters by their notes that 

 were pitched slightly out of the key their elders pipe in. 

 Among the birds abovehead, at Norwich, were redshanks 

 (by scores), grey plovers (probably in hundreds), a few 

 ringed plovers, here and there a lapwing, and once a sander- 

 ling. Other notes, some quite strange to me, were heard. 



" On arriving at Yarmouth at eleven, I landed into the 

 thick of the night-wailing, especially in the neighbourhood 

 of Breydon grey plovers piped in still greater numbers, 

 and goodly flocks of curlews joined in the chorus, numerous 

 dunlins helping. . . . All along homewards I heard the 

 night hosts yelping as if it had been an October night, and 

 the bulk of the migrants were passing. Of course, I asso- 

 ciated the S.E. wind with this ' invasion,' and wondered why 

 the glass had not fallen lower. I wonder if the other Norfolk 

 towns were visited in this fashion probably all of them were. 

 " Yours truly, JOHN KNOWLITTLE." 



